Abstract
Swelling soils can be found in many parts of the world. The state of practice in this area has been changing over recent decades. The design of foundations for expansive soils is an important challenge facing engineers. The excessive damage is, in part, due to the lack of proper design, resulting in the need for better tools for practitioners in order to assess the impact of swelling soils in typical design applications. A correct measurement of the swelling pressure is required for an accurate prediction of the heave. A theoretical model is proposed to describe the swelling potential of clay soils on the basis of their characteristics obtained from oedometer tests. This paper describes analysis of the behavior of swelling soils when moistened under buildings and structures. The methods and principles currently used for the design of structure foundations on swelling soils involve important problems due to the non-uniform deformations of these soils when subjected to structural loads. The current study was conducted to compute the uplifting of shallow foundations on swelling soils considering the water-content change as well as the contact-pressure distribution under the footing.